Roughly 64% of people plan to switch jobs in 2021, according to a US Pulse Survey.

Do these statistics matter for demand generation and revenue teams? Or is this just some trend that’ll fade away at some point?

No matter what you think about “the great resignation,” you would agree that people who’ve used your product before are usually the easiest to sell to again—unless you bungled the post-purchase process up.

This quick guide will walk you through which contact types to track for job changes, how to segment your CRM contacts to make sure you cover all the bases, and how best to prioritize.

Are job postings/changes a valuable trigger for prospecting?

58% of the folks we asked think it does. 

Finding the shortest and warmest path into an account or opportunity is Uhuru for any sales rep in a world of ever-increasing sales sequences.

Cue job postings or changes!

And as Adam Albrecht, Sales Development Manager, When I Work puts it, “company job postings are a gold mine of information that can be used in various ways.”

“Typically, they’ll lead you to the decision maker/influencers (i.e., position reports to/works in partnership with), role/responsibilities (info on what the position will create/manage - potentially a project/initiative that aligns with your solution), tech stack (what’s in place/not in place today/looking to implement) and much more,” he continues.

The problem is that nobody’s telling us how to do it.

Contact types to track for job changes

Here at UserGems, here’s how we segment our CRM contacts to ensure we track all our contacts for job changes:

1. Contacts from customer accounts

2. Power users

3. Standard users

4. Key prospects (from open opportunities or closed lost) 

Contacts from customer accounts

When tracking job changes, most people think of the primary contacts they interact with daily, but these folks are not the only ones you should be tracking. Depending on your product, your direct contact might not be the same as the economic decision-maker.

For example, if you're selling IT infrastructure software, your Customer Success Manager (CSM) might be dealing with an IT Manager. But the person who signed the purchase in the first place was the Chief Information Officer (CIO).

So, make sure to include at least these four contact types for each account:

-   Your primary contact

-   The decision-maker

-   Champions or influencers (if any)

-   Product administrators.

Power users

For each customer account, it’s not unusual to have between five to 20 contacts saved in Salesforce. But that’s not the actual number of users who use your product.

Like most SaaS products, the number of active/power users can be as much as 5x the number of contacts in your Salesforce. 

These could all be your internal champions at their next job change. Seeing they already know your product. Your product team is your best bet to get this sort of data.

Have them connect your user database with your CRM for critical information such as:

-   Full names

-   Contact details (email addresses and any other relevant contact information)

-   Company name

-   Time spent using your product

-   And maybe (if you track it), their Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The last two pieces of data tell you how active they were as users and how much they liked your product—both can help you prioritize, and who knows, personalize your outreach even further.

One challenge we have seen now and then is the user database isn’t synced to Salesforce.

Whenever that’s the case, we export the user list as a CSV file. Next, we use UserGems to track these contacts for job changes and create new leads in Salesforce when/if they join new companies and match your persona.

Standard users

These folks are casual product users. 

They don’t spend as much time on your product. Or only use specific features. But that doesn’t mean they can’t champion for you or refer you to decision-makers as they already know your product.

You can also reference them directly in your outreach to the decision-maker. For example: 

“Johnny just joined your team and was a previous user [of this product], do you think Johnny and the broader team could benefit as well?”

Key prospects (from open opportunities or closed lost)

These are the prospects in a sales opportunity that loved your product, were adequately educated on it, and maybe were in favor of a close but left before the deal closed.

Not only can they take you to their new company, but they can also refer you back to their original company (and give you some essential advice).

On the flip side, if these key prospects were blockers on a previous deal, knowing they’ve left can open an opportunity (excuse the pun) for you to restart the conversation with the new decision-makers.

Ready to track job changes of your customers?

The great resignation is a nightmare for recruiters and HR departments. But it can be a boon for revenue teams if approached the right way.

People who already used or bought your product in the past are way more likely to close again and faster this time around. Why?

They already know and trust your product.

Why UserGems

UserGems is the future of outbound sales and marketing teams. We use AI to help companies like yours identify the warmest paths to open opportunities and close more deals faster.